Wanderlust

A year ago, I was on the verge of leaving for four weeks. I find this year I have serious, serious wanderlust... why is it I'm not leaving for 4 weeks again this year? Hmmm??? Damn the American vacation system.

Well, there's always next year, and that also gives me time to save up for a longer trip. I'm definitely about the bright shiny objects when it comes to traveling... the list is long of where I'd like to go. Mostly Europe, some Asia, South Pacific, Australia/New Zealand, and all sorts of weird places that normal tourists don't think about.

Two places that seem to be the brightest shiny objects right now:

The UK & Ireland... I really want to get to Wales, to Scotland, southern Ireland, differents parts of England... I'd really like to go live there for about a year, that should give me the time. But I think I could narrow it and make a good start in, say, a month.

The Iron Curtain Biking Trail. They took the border and turned it into a bike trail. Condition of that road seems to vary, but it's so new, it's hard even to get decent info on it. As usual, the Germans seem to be first off the mark. In other place, it seems more like they've taken down the border, but haven't necessary made a touring-bike worthy path. Still, I salivate thinking about it: the whole thing is about 3,000 miles long, and goes from well in the arctic circle, in Norway, down the length of Finland, along the coast of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, through Poland, along the German-German border, down between Austria and the Czech Republic and Hungary; and then on into Bulgaria and Romania and I think Slovenia before popping on into Greece. I know I don't have time to do the whole thing... but my god, that would be fun.

And then lurking behind them both is Iceland. That'd be interesting too...

Sigh. Well, there's a long winter ahead of me... long time to dream.